


Bare Skin

by thenewestattraction (richeyinbloom)



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Band, Angst, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 23:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10398930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/richeyinbloom/pseuds/thenewestattraction
Summary: Ryan sometimes thinks way too much, but is that necessarily a bad thing?





	

**Author's Note:**

> I loved writing this way too much.

Ryan Ross couldn't sleep.

 

Despite the fact that he had Brendon curled up next to him, soundly asleep and holding onto Ryan, letting him know he was wanted here, Ryan couldn't help but feel out of place. Ryan always felt out of place, no matter where he was. He couldn’t help but feel as if he were less than he really was.

 

Brendon was warm as he held Ryan, looking awfully pretty as he slept. Ryan never had to question why he loved Brendon, even if they fought, Ryan always knew he still loved Brendon. He never questioned whether Brendon’s loved him back or not, he never had to.

 

They’d never explicitly said those words to one another, which Ryan didn’t consider a big deal. They just knew, Brendon’s eyes spoke louder than his words, and Brendon always seemed to know what Ryan was thinking. So even if those three words remained unspoken, they would always know.

 

Brendon wasn’t officially living with Ryan either, but he showed up one day a few weeks ago and only goes back to his place to get clothes or stuff for work. Ryan didn’t mind if Brendon came and went as he pleased, he meant to get Brendon a key one of these days so that he didn’t have to wait when Ryan was out.

 

Ryan could hear traffic from outside the building, through his open window that Brendon had insisted they should keep open because it was the middle of July and he was way too warm. Ryan would always do as Brendon asked, in all honesty. Brendon meant the world to him, and it was nice to know that Brendon felt the same.

 

Ryan had forgotten what it was like to be in love for a long while, genuinely in love. Before it was falling to fix himself, and they never worked out because once he was ‘fixed’, he didn’t know what to do. Stuck in a loveless relationship, codependent and and they both clung to each other in hopes of happiness.

 

It was never like this with Brendon, it was always genuine. It was never to fix himself, or to fix Brendon. Even if, right now, Ryan didn’t see a full future with Brendon. Marriage and children, a house with a picket fence, he never saw that. He had never seen himself growing old with Brendon, but he didn’t mind the idea.

 

Being with him was really unplanned, it came out of nowhere and hit him like a sledgehammer, but he wasn’t going to leave him. He didn’t know if they were going to have a future, but he didn’t mind being with Brendon for now, even if he did feel out of place in his own bed.

 

Brendon always made him feel like home, though. He made the idea of ever leaving awfully hard to deal with.

 

Ryan had thought about running away from his life before. It didn’t seem like a terrible idea, running away and creating some sort of new identity where his past life couldn’t catch up with him. Permanently fixing all of his mistakes, getting rid of everything he once was to become a better version of himself.

 

Ryan had always known that he could be better than who he had become, who everyone knew him as. He knew that the person Ryan Ross had grown up to be wasn’t what he ever wanted. Living a normal life, rarely doing anything to make him stand out in a positive light, yet that’s what happened.

 

He didn’t mind it all too much, it just wasn’t ideal. Maybe he had to grow up and learn to deal with it. Learn to deal with everything that had happened in his life, including all the negative things that he would much rather enjoy leaving out, pretending they didn’t exist at all. Learn to deal with his life.

 

He would learn to someday.

 

He had always questioned what it would be like to run away though, to forget everything and invent a new person, someone who wasn’t himself. He would be dead to everyone but himself, he wouldn’t need anyone else until he decided he did, and everyone else would forget who Ryan Ross was.

 

Everyone would forget him eventually, whether he was dead or alive, what would be wrong in speeding up the process. No one would care after a while, maybe at first they’d be upset, maybe confused, but he’d fade from everyone’s memory someday, someday he’d just be a photograph on the wall.

 

Mortality was a strange concept to Ryan, that he could die any day and he was aware of it. That anything could happen and happen and he’d be gone. Permanently, maybe without being able to say important last words. But that didn’t matter, it mattered that he was living now and not that he might not be tomorrow.

 

He never thought of people around him dying all that often. Even after his dad died, he never questioned whether anyone else were to die around him. He was upset about his dad, he was always going to be, but he never thought about anyone else while he was dying, or afterwards.

 

He never really considered Brendon dying, or losing Brendon permanently. It just wasn’t a concept that crossed his mind at any point, Brendon seemed like some sort of immortal in Ryan’s mind and the idea that at some point he would just be gone was something he didn’t think about.

 

It wasn’t that he was avoiding the idea of it, he knew that it would happen someday, and that maybe Ryan would still be with him at that point. That Ryan might still wake up next to him until that day came. He just didn’t like to think about it.

 

He knew a day would come when he wouldn’t wake up with Brendon by his side, and that it would never happen again, but he liked to think that that day would be a large amount of time away instead of tomorrow. He knew that it was inevitable, but he knew that he was with Brendon right now, and not to worry about something that wouldn’t happen now.

 

Right now, when he was challenged with the thought of disappearing or running away, Brendon was something that stopped him. He dreaded the idea of waking up one day to feel the other end of the bed cold and realise, that’s how it would stay. And if it weren’t, his boy wouldn’t be there.

 

He had thought about how Brendon would feel if he disappeared too, maybe he’d be distraught, maybe he’d look for Ryan, and maybe he’d move on. He thought the last one, at first, but he’s growing to believe he’d affect Brendon if he really did leave. Especially if he left without telling Brendon first.

 

He never wanted to hurt Brendon, and he would never let anything he did hurt Brendon. He was always trying to live to be the person who was perfect for him, but sometimes he realised that all Brendon really wanted from him was the person he really was. Brendon didn’t mind his imperfections.

 

Ryan didn’t mind Brendon’s either, everything about Brendon seemed perfect to him even when they weren’t. He was hyper at times, and sometimes had a short temper but Ryan didn’t mind if they helped him become the person that was Brendon Urie. Ryan loved Brendon Urie.

 

His thoughts were repetitive when it came to Brendon, all about how much he loved the boy, how much he wanted him to stay with him. He would never speak such things aloud, not yet. But when he thought of Brendon, he could never really use his head properly, that’s just what Brendon did to him.

 

He let himself stare at Brendon, who always managed to stay nineteen whenever he was asleep. He looked youthful and it were almost as if he were from an old magazine, or some sort of movie. He was picture perfect, every feature in the right place, and anyone would be lucky to have him.

 

When he’d met Brendon, he was twenty and Brendon was nineteen. He couldn’t remember it exactly, he can only remember Brendon being there, and the world was blurry before it. He had memories of times without him, but it was hard to think of a time when Brendon hadn’t constantly been by his side.

 

Brendon had grown in those six years since they’d met, he looked like he had too. He looked twenty five, and he acted it. But sometimes, Ryan would catch small glimpses of the old Brendon. The flirty, cocky Brendon that showed up when they got drunk, or maybe a mischievous glint in his eyes.

 

Though years had passed, and he’d changed everything from light bulbs to houses, Brendon was still that nineteen year old who met Ryan, and wouldn’t leave him alone for weeks afterwards. He was still that same boy who Ryan had taken out to the place he went to write, and somehow made it his own.

 

Ryan knew that Brendon used to own every room he walked into, hell, he still did. He had just grown a little more, he knew now that he didn’t have to own everything, he could settle for what he had because it worked for him, he knew he could settle down one day with what he had, even if he never planned to.

 

Brendon always seemed like one of those people who would never just settle down with someone, let alone Ryan. He wasn’t in the mood to commit, there was still fun to be had with other people, and other things to try. He couldn’t decide on where his future was going, and he was okay with that.

 

Now he was practically living with Ryan, waking him every morning with light kisses, holding him in his sleep. He would wake with Ryan, and fall asleep with him. Spending most of the days just talking to him, or enjoying his company. It was nice, and more peaceful, more certain. Ryan would never complain about his relationship with Brendon.

 

They had never truly labeled whatever it was that they had, deciding that until they got married or whatever, it was better without being called anything. They were just Ryan and Brendon. They were partners, in every sense of the word. Ryan guessed they could be called lovers, too.

 

It was irrelevant that Ryan never intended to fall in love with Brendon, and that when he met Brendon, he was actually in a relationship with another girl, who didn’t keep touch, and didn’t know he was with Brendon. She knew Brendon, but would never of guessed that he was going to take her spot in the bed one day.

 

Brendon hadn’t dated a lot before Ryan, a lot of failed first dates, sure, but never proper dating. He had always called Ryan the after the date, maybe after staying the night, needing a lift and Ryan would always be prepared, somehow, and would always be willing to help out. It was Brendon, who he knew would never see this person again. Never settle down.

 

Before they had started this thing, Brendon had always said he wouldn’t ever settle down with someone, then acknowledged, that at least not right now. To give it a few years. Ryan toyed with the idea of settling down but he wasn’t with anyone at the time and, really, unless he fell in love, he wouldn’t settle down.

 

Some place they’d ended up then.

 

To be fair, they weren’t completely settled down, considering they were still living in their own places and had no plans for marriage or anything of the sort at the time. But it was different, they were exclusively seeing each other, even if they hadn’t really spoken things through, and they had no real needs to see anyone else, anyway.

Ryan didn’t mind it being Brendon exclusively. He was never truly one for casual sexual relationships, not that he was against them. He was too selfish for those, he’d end up gaining more feelings than the other would reciprocate. It wasn’t his fault, but it wouldn’t be the other’s either.

 

Brendon and Ryan never really had anything like that. They were friends, and one day Brendon kissed him and kissing become regular and then fucking and then staying over at Ryan’s, then holding each other as they slept. Then it was not talking to anyone else, then it  was silent love confessions. Silent, but they meant the world.

 

Sometimes Ryan wondered if Brendon would go home someday, just decide not to stay here all the time, just decide to live in his own place. He doubted it, Brendon had brought a suitcase of clothes now just because he knew he was going to stay for longer than expected. Ryan didn’t mind that.

 

He knew that it was as much Brendon’s home as it was his now. Home didn’t necessarily have to be the place you were living. It was more who you were with, and the experiences that you shared there. Ryan didn’t know if this was Brendon’s home, but Ryan knew it was his. Not because he lived there, but because it was where he and Brendon stayed.

 

It was strange to explain, but it was the truth.

 

It wasn’t hard to explain what he and Brendon had, though. He wouldn’t say love aloud, instead saying something along the lines of “We just fit”, and it works. It works for everyone because Ryan and Brendon fit together so perfectly it was odd that it took so long for them to realise it.

 

They had no anniversary or anything. They wouldn’t until it was like, properly official. It wasn’t anything like that yet, they had just started on some random day in May. Which was all that there was to say about it, neither of them remembered the exact date because how would it be relevant? The memories don’t equate to a single day.

 

Anniversaries were cliche anyway, no one really needed to celebrate them. Celebrating how long you’ve been together with someone, like, well done, you haven’t left yet. You deserve a pat on the back for that one.

 

Brendon was probably worse than Ryan with the anniversary thing, at least Ryan remembered it was some time in May, Brendon probably just remembered it as sometime last year. Nothing more than that. Ryan didn’t mind, he didn’t mind that that they had nothing official yet.

 

Even if they weren’t official, he was still thinking about getting Brendon a key for convenience, even if they weren’t official or anything, and Brendon wasn’t living here. It was better than Brendon waiting outside for Ryan to come home and give him shit for making him wait once he was.

 

Brendon was stirring in his sleep now, due to Ryan sitting up. He was reaching for Ryan, and Ryan felt kind of bad, lying back down next to Brendon who let out a small noise, holding Ryan close as if he were going to leave. What a joke that was. Ryan could never really leave Brendon.

 

He was unable to pretend that too, and he didn’t have to. Even awake, Brendon didn’t pretend that Ryan meant less than he did. Lingering around all day, peppering his face with kisses occasionally, or just sitting next to Ryan on the couch while he was working, kissing his cheek and falling into a light sleep, head on Ryan’s shoulder.

 

It was nice and familiar to Ryan now, the days where Brendon actually had to leave made everything seem so empty, but he was comforted in knowing Brendon would probably come knocking on his door the next day, no matter what. It wasn’t arrogance, and even if Brendon didn’t, Ryan would.

 

They’d always end up back together again, it was inevitable.

 

Ryan had stayed over at Brendon’s place too. It was nice, tidy since he was never really home. And his bed was comfortable. They both preferred Ryan’s place, though. It felt more like home because they spent more time together here. And Brendon had made it his own.

 

Brendon may have known that he didn’t need to own every room he walked into, but he also knew he was welcome to in Ryan’s home. He made it his own and Ryan was happy with that, knowing that Brendon was perfectly content staying at Ryan’s place. He was happy knowing Brendon knew he was always welcome.

 

Though the two of them probably would talk the relationship thing out for a long time to come, Ryan was perfectly fine with unofficially living with Brendon, and in a way, living for Brendon. It was always Brendon that came first, no matter what, and Ryan thinks to himself, he wouldn’t mind it being that way for the rest of however long this may last.

 

And Brendon, he still held onto Ryan, almost in fear that Ryan would just vanish, like he thought about all those times. Ryan almost wanted to just tell him no, no he’s not going to disappear, he’d never do that. It’s a weird feeling to think that. To think that it was definite he wasn’t going to run off at some point.

 

He didn’t mind it though, knowing he was going to wake up with Brendon glued to his side the next morning. It was calming in a way, knowing where he was going to wake up and who was going to be with him. It was something he hadn’t had the luxury of knowing in quite a while, now.

 

He looked over at Brendon, noticing he forgot to close the curtains because the streetlights were reflected against his face. As he rolled over, the lights reflected off his whole body, due to the sheets coming off. It was a scene out of a movie, maybe. Brendon looked too perfect, too perfect to be holding Ryan like this.

 

He honestly looked so perfect in that moment. His handsome features shadowed as he moved his head into the crook of Ryan’s neck, leaving his back exposed to the light. The blend between the moonlight and lights projected off the lampposts, casting a glow upon his bare skin.

 

Ryan smiled, memorising the image and closing his eyes, knowing when he woke, Brendon would be there, and Brendon would hold him, and wake him up with kisses. They’d eat breakfast together, and it felt like settling down. It felt like settling down and it was so terribly perfect.

 

He soon fell asleep, feeling Brendon’s lips brush his neck as he mumbled something in his sleep, it was nonsense, of course, but Ryan didn’t mind. Just letting himself fall. Fall into what, sleep or love, he didn’t know. Maybe both. It, in all honesty, was probably both. It was nice, though.

 

He woke the next morning, the sun shining through the still open curtains, and Brendon’s lips on his neck. He let out a groaning sort of noise to indicate he was awake, and Brendon grinned. Ryan noted Brendon was hard, and it was going to be one of those mornings. It hadn’t crossed his mind the night before, but he did like those mornings.

 

It was one of those mornings where Ryan lazily fucked Brendon under the sheets, with Brendon letting out small noises. It was one of those mornings where, despite their morning breath, Brendon still kissed Ryan like it was the only thing that mattered. Ryan really did like these mornings.

 

And afterwards, when all was over and they were lying almost breathless, lazily kissing each other, Brendon pulled away to smile at Ryan, and even though Brendon didn’t speak a word, remaining completely silent, his eyes said it all. His eyes spoke because his words could not. “I love you.”

 

Ryan smiled back in a way that he hoped would get the message across. “I love you too.”

  
_END_

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of an attempt at writing something bigger than it really was. It's not the best but I love it. Please leave comments.


End file.
